The old guy Mike called to give us an estimate for replacing two windows refused to take driving directions to our house. Instead, I had to drop everything and go out to meet him.

He wasn’t at the corner where he was supposed to be. Instead, he’d driven his unmarked truck past me and was waiting two blocks from our home. He used his cell phone to call me. I tracked him down and he followed me to my house.

The window on the right is the one that needs replacing.

The windows are upstairs. He followed me up the stairs. I pointed out the 4 foot by 8 foot double-pane glass panel that needed replacement. The seal between the two panes had failed and moisture had slipped in. Each day, the window would fog up in a way that couldn’t be wiped clean. Since the window is one of two that offer the best view in the house, we wanted it fixed quickly.

He walked up to the window and looked at the garage roof outside. “How do I get out there?” he asked.

“On a ladder,” I replied.

“We can’t do that. The glass is big and heavy.”

“You did it twelve years ago when we first bought the house,” I told him. I pointed at the identical panel of glass beside it. “You replaced that one right after we moved in.”

“How did we get up there?” he asked.

“On a ladder.”

The bathroom window is broken.

I took him into the upstairs bathroom to see the other window that needed replacing. This was a small two-part window of white-smoked glass. One panel slid back and forth to open or close the window. The other panel remained stationery. The stationery panel had always had a bad seal that let moisture in, but we never bothered to replace it since you couldn’t see through it anyway. But during a recent storm, that panel’s outside pane had broken. We wanted it replaced.

He pulled off the panel that slid back and forth and set it down beside the toilet. He reached around, pushing the screen out a bit and mumbling about how he hoped nothing fell.

“How do you get up to this window?” he asked.

“On a ladder,” I replied yet again.

“What size ladder?”

“My husband uses an extension ladder. We have one you can use.”

He put the other panel back in place. “I don’t know why anyone would build a house like this,” he muttered as he led the way out of the bathroom.

My patience was stretching thin. “People don’t usually design houses just to make it convenient to replace windows,” I told him.

He went downstairs, outside, and around the side of the house. I followed. He looked up at the bathroom window, which had to be at least 20 feet off the ground. Then he looked at the comparatively short climb to the garage roof.

“Once you get up there,” I told him, you can walk on the garage roof pretty easily.

He looked at the situation for another moment, then suddenly said, “I can’t help you, lady.”

I don’t know if he was expecting me to argue or beg with him, but if he was, he was disappointed.

“Okay, thanks for your time,” I said quickly. “You can find your way out? Be careful backing up.”

And then I went into the house, leaving him find his way back to wherever it is he’d come from.

Of course, since the old guy is the only glass replacement option in Wickenburg — or at least the only one my husband could find — we’ll have to get someone up from Phoenix to do the job. But that’s typical here. No matter how much you try to spend money locally, you just can’t get what you need.

I found this message in my spam folder this afternoon:

I have xp, I have been using microsft exscel 2007 with no problems until today
the spread sheet prints with wavy lines
cells are wavy, it is not the printer because when I go back and print old spread sheets it is fine
thank you for your help

I have not edited this other than to remove the sender’s name. I had never before been in contact with the sender.

Yes, I know I’ve written books about Excel, including Excel 2007. But does that make me the go-to person for all Excel questions? Like I have nothing better to do than sit at my desk and wait for Excel user questions to come in so I can answer them?

My Contact page clearly indicates that I do not answer questions about my books via e-mail. But this isn’t even a question about my books. This is a technical support question about a printing problem. How am I supposed to know what this person — who is borderline illiterate — did in Excel to get wavy cell lines?

This message is good for one thing, however: it gave me fodder for a rant about the kind of crap I find in my e-mail in box.

Sheesh.

Our old RV — which we drove away from this afternoon without a backward glance — had a solar panel on the roof. The panel charged the RVs two batteries, which, in turn could power the lights, stereo, and any devices we had plugged in to the unit’s two DC power ports. This was handy when we camped off-the-grid, as we did numerous times on our way from Washington state to Arizona last summer.

The system didn’t have an inverter, though. That meant that it could not power the AC power outlets or anything plugged into them, including handy devices like the microwave. We learned to do without.

Our new RV is quite a step up from the old one. It actually has rooms. And a desk I can sit and work at. And lots of space.

Of course, we wanted it to have a solar setup, too. But a full-blown setup that would include an inverter and be able to power any of the outlets and devices on board. Okay, well maybe not the air conditioning, but everything else.

My husband, Mike, is a solar guy. He knows how to design solar power systems. He set up the one on our old RV and designed and built the significantly more complex one on our off-the-grid vacation “cabin.” So he sat down with a pen and paper and, using the Internet, researched a solution. We’d use the panel off our old RV, match it with a second panel, add two batteries, an inverter, and a bunch of other stuff, and have a 2KW solar setup. The cost: roughly $3K.

Now $3000 is a lot of money, especially after pouring a bunch of money into a new RV. But I like the idea of renewable energy. And I love the idea of silent energy. So I was willing to spend another $3K. I saw it as an investment in the future.

We were in Quartzsite, AZ when we picked up the RV. There are lots of RV service centers there, including two that specialize in solar power systems. So we drove over to one to get a quote.

And that’s when things started getting funky.

One guy priced up a system for us what was just a bit over Mike’s estimate. That didn’t include installation labor, though. (I insisted on a professional installation.) He quoted us labor at $55/hour for maybe four hours. I took a deep breath and nodded. So the sales guy handed us off to the order writer. She priced everything out. But suddenly labor was $85/hour and we were looking at 10 hours or more. She refused to be pinned down, but I was seeing a minimum of $4400. My “ripoff radar” — developed after years living in the New York area — perked up and started sending me signals. I told the woman we’d sleep on it and we left.

We went to the other solar outfitter. We’d bought all our solar panels and some other equipment from them in the past. They priced out our system and came up with a solid number: $4168. Ouch.

Mike and I talked about it at some length. He’d already suggested a much cheaper alternative for the times we were off the grid: a 2000-watt Honda generator that could be used parallel with an identical model to give a total of 4000 watts. If you needed a little power, you’d fire up one. If you needed more, you’d connect the second one and fire it up, too. With 4000 watts, we could power everything in the camper, including the air conditioning.

At first, I’d resisted the suggestion. I wanted quiet power. The Honda generators were known for their quietness, but nothing would be as quiet as solar.

But the kicker: we could get the Hondas for less than $1,000 each. Just one would provide as much power as the solar setup we’d envisioned. No need for an inverter or charge controller or holes drilled in the RV roof.

Later that day, we walked around the RV show in Quartzsite, where vendors were selling all kinds of things for RVers. One of them had Yamaha generators. The Yamaha EF2000iS did the same thing the Honda we were considering did, but it was 2 decibels quieter and 2 pounds lighter. And a tiny bit cheaper to buy, too.

It was even cheaper on Amazon.com.

So we didn’t go with the solar setup. I just can’t justify the added expense — after all, to get 2,000 watts with solar power, we’d be spending four times as much as the generator would cost us.

And I’m sure we’re not the only people who feel this way.

It’s unfortunate. There are many people out there who want to do the “right thing” and use renewable energy. But it’s difficult to justify the added expense. When a friend pointed out that we’d have to buy fuel for the generator, we replied that $3000 worth of fuel could go a long way at 5 hours per gallon. The solar setup would never pay for itself.

I’m hoping that changes sometime soon.

Yesterday, after five months of checking out possibilities, I purchased my fourth RV. It’s 2010 Keystone Montana Mountaineer, Hickory Edition, model 324RLQ. (The name is almost as long as the titles of some of my books.)

What Came Before

To understand what I wanted in an RV, it’s interesting to note what came before it. For years, we camped in tents on the ground. But as many readers will probably confirm, you reach a certain age when sleeping on the ground — even on an air mattress — takes away much of the pleasures of camping out. So about 10 years ago, we decided we needed something to “camp” in that allowed us to sleep off the ground.

We bought a used 1984 Coleman pop-up camper. The previous owner was meticulous with maintenance and the damn thing was in near perfect condition. The model was so old that it still had real canvas sides. It had two beds: a queen and a single, a table that could make another bed, a two-burner stove, and a microscopic sink. That’s it. We used it primarily on our Howard Mesa property, where we kept it parked and closed up. We’d go up there for a weekend, open it up, and camp out. It was perfect for summer days and nights. But it eventually fell into disuse. We left it at Howard Mesa as spare living space in case anyone came up there to visit with us. Years later, we “sold” it on Craig’s List for $1.

But then we got the horses and decided we wanted to be able to go camping with them. So we bought a 35-foot horse trailer with living quarters. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the concept, the trailer has stalls for the horses in back — ours held three. It also had a sort of closet for storing saddles and other tack. The other half of its length was dedicated to living space for people. It had a queen sized bed, sofa, sink, two-burner stove, good-sized refrigerator, and full (although tiny) bathroom. All this stuff was crammed into a very small space. We added a screened-in room to expand our living space. This photo shows what it looked like parked on our Howard Mesa property with the screen room attached. I lived in this space every other week in the summer of 2004 when I flew at the Grand Canyon. Sadly, we rarely used the camper as it was designed — to take our horses camping with us.

In 2006, I sold the horse trailer and purchased a Starcraft Antiqua hybrid camper. To me, this was the best of both worlds: a hard-sided camper with the usual amenities (kitchen, bathroom, dining area, sitting area, bedroom) plus the outdoorsy feeling of tent camping. We bought this primarily because we thought we were going to go “on the road” with the helicopter in the summer of 2007. I’d do cherry drying and rides at events, Mike would help and do some of his work via “telecommute.” But Mike had a job change and cherry drying did not materialize that year. I subsequently took this camper to Washington State for cherry drying in the summers of 2008 and 2009 and wound up living in it for 4 months one year and 3 months the next.

The best way to determine whether an RV is right for you is it live in it. After a total of nearly 8 months living in this space, I was convinced that it was not right for me. It was time to stop screwing around and buy the “perfect” RV.

What is the “Perfect” RV?

You notice that I keep putting the word perfect in quotes? I’m doing that for two reasons:

• You might argue that there’s no such thing as a “perfect” RV. I might have to agree with you. RVs are designed for groups of people, not individuals. That means no RV will have a “perfect” feature set.
• What you want or need in an RV is not the same as what I want or need. So what you might consider the “perfect” RV might not look anything like what I think is the “perfect” RV.

Once you decide what kind of RV you want — pop-up camper, pull trailer, toy hauler, fifth wheel, motorhome, etc. — there are three main considerations:

Floor plan. The layout of the RV is likely to determine what amenities it has. If you’ve never shopped for an RV — or haven’t done it lately — you will be amazed at what they can cram into a space. For example, the RV we selected is 36 feet long and 8 feet wide. Yet it has a private bedroom, private bathroom, kitchen, dining area, living area with sofa and recliners, and desk. In many cases, it does this with slide outs. You drive along, park, and push a button to expand your living space.

Being the picky person I am, certain elements of the floor plan were very important to me. I wanted to be able to access the refrigerator and bathroom without having to expand all the slides. For example, suppose I’m cruising down the road in the middle of nowhere and need/want a cold drink. I can pull over, climb into the RV, and grab one out of the fridge. And even take a leak in a bathroom I know is clean. I also wanted what’s called a “side aisle bath” — a bathroom with all components in the same little room. Other floor plans actually put the bathroom sink in the bedroom. I didn’t want that. And finally, I wanted working space that wasn’t the same place I ate. That means I needed a desk or space for a desk. An RV with a good desk is hard to find and I was perfectly willing to pull out a recliner or even a sofa to put in my own desk. But the model we wound up with actually had a good, usable desk and even had drawers (see photo below). So as far as floor plan is concerned, what I bought is pretty darn close to “perfect” — for me.

Features and Amenities. Every RV manufacturer and design has its own set of features and amenities. For example, a toy hauler includes a garage-like space in the back. A family model RV might include a separate bedroom — and even an additional half bathroom! — with bunks for the kids. Many luxury RVs have surround sound entertainment systems with wide screen televisions that rise out of a panel or fill an entire wall space. Some units have electric fireplaces. You can find kitchens with two refrigerators and bathrooms with bathtubs. Dining can be in a booth or table and chairs. Sofas can become second beds. Bedrooms can have televisions, closets can be cedar-lined, cabinets can have washer/dryer hookups. The list goes on and on. Just when you think you’ve seen it all, you walk into an RV with yet another feature you didn’t think you’d ever see in an RV.

For us, less was more — on the inside, anyway. All the RV dealers in the world can assure us that an electric fireplace is a good feature because it gives off heat using the campground’s electricity rather than our onboard propane. We can remind them all that we do a lot of off-the-grid camping where there is no campground electricity. A fireplace was a feature we simply didn’t want — yet it appeared in more than half the RVs we looked at! We were extremely pleased, therefore, when we found the unit we’d buy and saw that instead of a fireplace (see photo of typical configuration), there was an empty cabinet.

We did want lots of cabinet space, a dining table with chairs instead of booth, and a sofa or a pair of recliners. We wanted lots of big windows — and I’m thrilled that my desk has windows on two walls rather than just one — and we wanted all the windows to open. We wanted “day/night” shades on all the windows; I hope I never have to deal with a cheap metal venetian blind again.

On the outside, however, we wanted some of the newer modern features that were not available in the 2009 model we almost bought. At the top of the list was an electric awning — something I could roll out or back in with the push of a button. (If you’d manually rolled in an awning in your pajamas in the middle of the night when the wind kicked up as many times as I have, you’d understand why.) A remote control to deploy the slide outs was also useful when setting up the RV by myself, as I’m likely to do this summer. Ditto for electric stabilizer jacks and “landing gear.” And it seemed to make a lot more sense to have all hookups (except electricity) and sewer dump/flush controls in one place rather than scattered all over the side of the RV. These features were the primary reason we went with the 2010 model rather than the 2009 (which actually had more cabinet space in the kitchen).

But there are a few things I wanted that we didn’t get. A window in the kitchen, for example. The floor plan didn’t make that possible, but there are plenty of other windows. A night table — even a tiny shelf! — beside the bed. There is none in this floor plan because the bedroom is relatively small. (How much time do you really spend in the bedroom anyway?) Heck, I can’t think of anything else. In this model, I even got the file drawer I wanted at the desk!

Quality and Price. Quality and price really do go hand in hand. You get what you pay for. A low-end fifth wheel that you might be able to pick up for $25K is simply not going to be as sturdy or well-built as a top-of-the-line fifth wheel that’ll cost you nearly $100K.

Where you’ll see differences in quality are in the walls, floors, cabinets, furniture, and fixtures. A cheap RV’s walls will be covered with inferior wall covering that’s likely to shrink in hot weather (as it did in our Starcraft) and show the staples that hold it together. The cabinets will be some kind of processed wood that’s light weight and easily broken. There might be fewer plastic light fixtures than you need for good illumination. Kitchen and bathroom fixtures will be plastic; countertops will be a formica laminate. Things will break quickly and often, especially if you’re careless. Of course, if you only use the thing a week or two a year, this shouldn’t be an issue. But if you plan to spend several months a year actually living in it, quality becomes important.

In our case, we wanted good quality but knew we couldn’t afford — or, more accurately, were not willing to spend enough for — the best. So the very first part of our search was to determine which brands were below our quality needs or above our budget. This should be the first step in anyone’s search for an RV; you can waste a huge amount of time looking at units that simply won’t work for you because of insufficient quality or expensive price. We also cut from the mix any manufacturer what was in bankruptcy or had gone out of the business. 2008/09 killed a lot of them. That limited us to about ten different brands by three different manufacturers. Mountaineer is a mid-range Keystone product. Montana by Keystone is one step above it and we could have made that step if we found one we liked. Heartland’s Big Horn and Big Country were also in the running.

Our Perfect RV

The Mountaineer we bought won on all three factors:

• It had a floor plan that worked for us.
• It had a list of features and amenities that were in line with what we wanted and needed in an RV.
• Its quality was acceptable while its price was within out budget.

We also got a smoking deal on the unit. Keep in mind that we had a quote in hand for a new 2009 model on a lot in Surprise, AZ. I didn’t like the salesguy there — he’d made the fatal error of talking down to me. (Tip for salesmen: never tell a woman shopping alone that she should go home and talk to her husband about a purchase decision.) Mike and I were ready to climb into the car and work him over on price, but I didn’t really want to give him my business at all.

I started calling some of the RV dealers we’d met with over the past few months — I kept all their cards — to see if they had the same model available. One, in Quartzsite, said he had a 2010. I told him we’d consider driving out to take a look if we could agree to a price over the phone. I told him about the 2009 we were prepared to buy. He asked me to make an offer. I did. He came back with a slightly higher offer that was still about $14K below retail. We were there by 2 pm and had all the papers signed by 4:30 PM.

(Another tip for salesmen: Make sure all prospective customers get your card. You never know when one will call back and you’ll get the sale.)

Is a 2010 Keystone Montana Mountaineer, Hickory Edition, model 324RLQ the perfect RV? For us, it’s about as perfect as we’ll get right now. But for you? The answer isn’t that easy. If you want your perfect RV, you’ll have to do your homework to find it.

One of my Twitter friends, @anntorrence, author of U.S. Highway 89: The Scenic Route to Seven Western National Parks, rolled into town yesterday on a book signing tour. Highway 89 runs right through Wickenburg and that’s where we first met, in person, about two years ago. Ann stayed overnight; later today she’ll visit a few local shops and then continue her trip down to Phoenix and beyond.

Last night, after dinner, we started pulling out our camera equipment and playing with each other’s cameras and lenses. Ann told us some things about our Nikons that we didn’t know. We played with her flash in “commander mode.” We discovered that she and I each had the same old 50mm autofocus lens and it worked on all our cameras: my lowly D80, my husband’s newer D90, and Ann’s far superior D700. We also played around a bit with the two lenses I’m renting for a week from BorrowLenses.com, both of which arrived yesterday afternoon.

I snapped this photo with my Nikon Coolpix point-and-shoot to document the mess of equipment on my kitchen table. Fun stuff!

January 7 marked the 5 year anniversary of the day I brought my new Robinson R44 Raven II helicopter home from the Torrance, CA factory. I blogged extensively about the experience and the days leading up to it. I put this post together to help me remember it all. It’s full of links that you can follow to read the details behind the summary.

The Backstory

On June 30, 2004, I was working as a pilot for a Grand Canyon helicopter tour operator. I’d aspired to the job since I realized four years earlier that I wanted to fly helicopters commercially. When I was hired in March of 2004, I was thrilled.

A air-to-air shot of me at the controls of my R22 back in 2002.

I was not a typical tour pilot for the company. Besides being a woman — which has its own issues in a male-dominated field like aviation — I was about 20 years older than most of the “kids” they’d hired. It was an entry level job, after all. Most of my coworkers had built their time the usual way: as helicopter flight instructors. I, on the other hand, owned my own helicopter, a 1999 Robinson R22 Beta II, and was trying to run my own helicopter tour business with it. I’d built my 1,000 hours of PIC time flying passengers for hire, tooling around the desert, and taking very long cross-country flights by myself. To this day, I believe I have more solo flight time than 90% of the commercial helicopter pilots out there.

While I enjoyed flying at the Canyon and all the challenges that went with it, it soon became clear that flying there could not be a permanent position for me. My writing career was doing extraordinarily well and I was earning far more writing on my days off than I could ever learn sitting in the pilot’s seat for 8 or more hours a day.

I realized that June that I was at a crossroads of my life and careers. I knew I couldn’t maintain my standard of living if I got a full-time job as a pilot for someone else; without time to write, my income simply wouldn’t be sufficient to cover my living expenses. I knew I couldn’t build a real business with an R22 — especially without a CFI rating. I began thinking about taking the next step and buying a larger, better equipped helicopter. One that could take more passengers. One that made sense to build a business with, likely with a single-pilot Part 135 certificate to give me additional flexibility.

So, on June 30, I ordered a Robinson R44 Raven II.

The Wait Begins

In those days, Robinson had a 6-month backlog for new helicopter orders. You’d work with a dealer to choose options like instruments and colors and other features. The dealer would come up with a price. I’d already done all that in February of the same year, at HeliExpo. When it came time to order, all I had to do was make a phone call, sign a bunch of papers, and send in a check for $25K. That got me on the waiting list.

At the end of September, I left my job at the Grand Canyon. It would probably be the last time I flew there an I was more than a little sad.

In late October, I sold my R22. I’d need the money for part of the R44’s down payment. I was planning to put enough money down to keep my monthly loan payments the same as the R22’s were. I also started work with the local FSDO to get my single pilot Part 135 certificate.

By November month-end, I was going stir-crazy. It was the first time in years that I didn’t have access to an aircraft for flying. I flew as a passenger with friends who had helicopters. I buried myself in my writing work. I tried not to think about flying.

Photoshop guru Bert Monroy gave my friend Tristan’s helicopter a paint job to illustrate what mine would look like in flight.

A friend of mine used Photoshop to doctor up a photo of another friend’s R44 flying near my home, applying my aircraft’s color scheme. It was an air-to-air photo of a helicopter that didn’t exist yet. But it existed to me. I’d already begun referring to it by its last three call sign digits: Zero-Mike-Lima.

They put SN 10603 on the line the day I visited the factory.

When my family flew in from the east coast for Thanksgiving, some of us took a road trip out to California. We got a tour of the Robinson factory. By some incredible coincidence, it was the day they put my helicopter’s frame on the assembly line. My sister snapped a photo of me standing next to the frame, holding up the fake photo I’d brought along to show the folks at the factory.

(Yes, I realize that I sound like a giddy kid.)

By late December, the six month wait was almost over. I started booking rides gigs. I was anxious to get the helicopter by year-end, but that wasn’t going to happen. December ended and January 2005 started. By now, I was very anxious. I’d already cancelled one gig for December month end. I had another lined up for January 8.

Then, on Wednesday, January 6, the wait was suddenly over. You can pick up the details of the rest of the story here.

Yesterday, I spent the entire day cleaning my office. It was a disaster.

This is a time-lapse of the process. I used a 10.5mm fisheye lens to get my whole office in the picture. I shot one frame every 30 seconds, then compiled them at 15 frames per second in QuickTime. The result compresses about 8 hours of time into 1 minute.

NOW I can get back to work!

Since Mike and I each visited our families earlier this year and had no other plans for Christmas Day, we decided to take our cameras and my Jeep out into the desert north of Wickenburg to explore a few roads we’d never been on. The day was crystal clear with deep blue skies and only a scattering of high cirrus clouds. We left midday, right after lunch. We’d explore, from the ground, places I’d flown over countless times by helicopter.

[A side note here: it's really unfortunate that Wickenburg's economy can't support a younger, more vibrant population. The town is absolutely surrounded by opportunities for outdoor activities -- hiking, Jeeping, mountain biking, exploring ruins, digging for gold, etc. The writers at wickenburg-az.com have covered many possibilities. Although some of the retirees that dominate Wickenburg's winter population do occasionally climb into ATVs and get out to explore, the vast majority have no interest. As a result, the desert around Wickenburg remains a vast untapped resource for recreation.]

I do want to mention that all of the photos in this blog post are straight out of the camera — no Photoshopping at all. I just threw this post together on my laptop. So if colors look weird — especially that extra blue sky! — it’s natural — at least as far as my Nikon D80 thinks.

Getting Started

Our journey started on Rincon Road, right off of Highway 89/30. It’s a right hand turn not far from the second roundabout if you’re coming from the south. The road takes you past some pasture and a roping facility, then crosses the Hassayampa River, which is usually dry there. The pavement ends and starts and ends multiple times. You’ll cross the river twice. After the second crossing, you’ll find yourself at the site of an old manganese mine. There’s a big parking area there and it’s often filled with trucks pulling trailers for ATVs or horses. Yesterday, there were two camps set up, looking out over the riverbed.

We made a sharp left to continue along Rincon Road. It climbs out of the river area into the low mountains northwest of town. At an obvious intersection, we made a right to continue on Rincon. This short piece of road is extremely rough but offers outstanding views back toward Wickenburg, as well as lots of typical Sonoran desert vegetation. And rocks — did I mention the rocks?

As we continued along this piece of road, we passed a pickup truck with a cap on top. A man was standing, shirtless, at the back. He appeared to be washing his hands. A peek inside the truck cap revealed a mattress on a platform with various supplies under it. It was clear that this was the man’s “camper.” Not everyone needs a 35-foot fifth wheel for living in the desert.

After another quick photo stop, we joined Scenic Loop and headed north along its maintained dirt surface. This was familiar territory for us, so we didn’t remain on it long. Instead, when the road descended into a wash and turned to the east, we turned left into the wash and followed the sandy road northwest. According to our maps, this was scenic loop and the road we knew as Scenic Loop was actually called Stanton Hall Road. As if road names make a difference out there — none of the roads are marked and few people using the roads know their names.

We took our time along the drive, making a few stops along the way. At one point, we turned right off the main road and climbed up a side road covered with loose gravel. The road was steep and I think this is the only place where 4WD may have been required on the trip. Although we both expected the road to end, it continued past the top of the hill toward the east. We decided to turn back and stay on our original path.

The Photo Spots

I won’t bore you with the turn by turn details beyond this point — partly because I can’t remember every single turn we made as we wound down one dirt road after another, through washes, up steep grades, and around obstacles. I was glad we were in a Jeep and not something with a wider wheelbase. For most of the time, it was slow going. We didn’t stop many times for photos, on the first half of the trip because there wasn’t much of interest to photograph.

There were some exceptions, of course. One was Sand Mill, site of windmill, cattle tanks, and corral. I have a thing about windmills and did my usual study of this one. Unfortunately, it was broken, although I do think it could be repaired. What I found more interesting was the welded iron water tank behind it and the fencing around the corral — which was in unusually good shape. There had been two cows standing in the area when we drove up, but they ran off when we stopped. Cows out in the open range are funny like that. No matter how hard you try to not spook them, they get spooked anyway.

Anyway, here are three portrait view shots I took in the area. (Unlike a lot of amateur photographers, I’m not afraid to turn my cameral sideways.) These are a little more “artsy” than scenic. It was fun to play with the textures and patterns.

Later on, near a place called Brick Tank, I managed to get this shot of two cows. They stood there for about two minutes just staring at us as I rolled the Jeep into position and framed this shot. Then, just as I pushed down on the shutter, the smaller one (on the left) turned her head and ran off. The other followed, of course.

We also passed a herd of about eight mule deer along the way. I stopped while Mike tried to get some photos. They weren’t quite close enough for our lenses — we hadn’t brought along my 70-300mm zoom. Here’s my only shot, which I admit isn’t very good. I cropped it here.

As we reached Stanton, we found the road blocked by a fence and a “No Trespassing” sign. This wasn’t good news; if we had to go back to find another route, it could have easily taken another hour to get to the same spot. Fortunately, two-track roads led around the fence, dumping us right outside the ghost town of Stanton on Stanton Road.

Stanton is owned by the Lost Dutchmen Mining Association (LDMA). It’s always had a caretaker on duty, so the few buildings that remain of the original town — stage stop, hotel, and opera house — still stand. The LDMA offers campsites for its members. On Christmas Day, the place was crammed with RVs of all kinds, from the crappiest conversion van you could imagine to a 35-foot Cameo that looked very new. These folks spend their time panning for gold, which is kind of cool. I say “kind of” because it’s a ton of work and not the easiest way to make money. But every once in a while, someone finds a gold nugget big enough to keep everyone else looking. And it’s nice to be able to spend so much time outdoors with folks who share the same interest.

The Mountainous Portion of the Trip

Stanton Road meets up with Mina Road right there and that’s where we headed to start the second part of the trip — the part I wanted to do. I’d seen a Jeep road up in the Weaver Mountains that I wanted to check out. It wasn’t far from Stanton on the back road that went from Stanton to Yarnell: Mina Road.

Our landmark was a switchback to the left in the road. The road we wanted would go straight instead of making that left turn. But sure enough, it was blocked off with a fence and a “No Trespassing” sign. We made a U-turn and went back a short distance to another road that looked as if it might parallel the one we wanted. According to my GPS and the topo maps we’d brought along, the road we were on ended. But those maps are from the 1980s, before folks with ATVs and gold fever started exploring the area. We explored the road and its side roads until we found the place it met up with the road we wanted, beyond that private property.

We drove across Antelope Creek, which still running as a small stream with a mix of spring water and runoff from snow and rain at higher elevations the previous week. I threw the Jeep into 4WD and powered up a steep, narrow Jeep trail with lots of loose rock. When I leveled out and could see the road beyond, I realized that I just wasn’t prepared to go any farther. The road was very narrow, very steep, and covered with very loose rock. I was tired from almost 2 hours of driving on back roads. I’d had enough rough road exploring.

We got out for a while to take photographs in the area. There was a lot of slate-like rock, standing straight up. Much of the rock was covered with orange and yellow lichen. It made an interesting contrast to the green and brown of the desert, the blue of the sky, and the deep shadows cast by late afternoon sun. The light hadn’t gotten “good” yet, but it wasn’t bad — probably because of its low winter angle.

We also walked down to Antelope Creek. It was great to see so much water flowing in the desert. I knew that downstream, the flow dried up before it even reached Stanton. I tried to get some photos that showed reflections in pools of relatively smooth water. The water, in some places, was about two feet deep. Although Jack the Dog drank some of it without side effect, I wouldn’t think of drinking it without treating it first; just too much open range and wildlife in the area. (That’s why its best to bring your own water, even if you know you might find some along the way.)

The Way Back

We returned to Mina Road and headed back toward Wickenburg. But rather than take the fast way — Stanton Road to Route 89 — we turned left on Stanton Road and headed back on more dirt roads.

But first, we stopped at one of the few buildings that remain at Octave, another ghost town. The afternoon sun had drifted down quite low when we arrived and I think I got some of my best photos of the day. I have a thing about photographing abandoned buildings, and even though this was a small one, it kept me busy for a good 20 minutes. This is one of my favorite shots.

We also stopped alongside the road where the boulder-and-saguaro-strewn side of Rich Hill was illuminated by the low-lying sun. As you look at this photo, remember that each cactus stands at least 15 feet tall. Really gives you an idea of how big the boulders are, no? The horizontal version of this photo will be my desktop pattern.

We turned south toward Wickenburg a while later. Again, I can’t remember where we turned; you’ll need to check my GPS track log to see. The following 90 minutes was spent exploring various ways to get through the desert and back to pavement near Scenic Loop or Rincon Road. We made a lot of “wrong” turns. In looking at our track and knowing the desert from previous non-GPS-assisted trips, I know we didn’t take the best path. But it was a new path, and that’s all that really mattered.

We joined back up with Scenic Loop near Sand Mill and retraced our steps. By then, the light was very low and the mountains were glowing copper colored. We made one more side trip in search of a good spot to take some final photos and found ourselves quite close to the Hassayampa River on a short cliff. Although Mike took some shots, I didn’t like anything I saw through the lens.

We backtracked all the way back to 89/93, drove through town, and headed home. It was a great way to spend Christmas Day.

Trace Our Treads

If you’re interested in following our route, I offer my Garmin GPX track log file for you to load into your GPS. Once you load the track log into your GPS, you can go to the center of town in Wickenburg to pick up the track and follow it. For best results, you’ll want a GPS that you can load topographic maps on; you’ll see that many (but not all) of the dirt roads we followed appear on the Garmin MapSource maps — or standard USGS topographical maps. You’ll also see where we made wrong turns and hit dead ends. You might want to review the track log before following it blindly; here it is on EveryTrail.com.

You’ll also need a vehicle with high clearance and a relatively narrow wheelbase. Leave the Hummer or big pickup truck home. You’ll do better with a Jeep or quad or some other ATV. Although we threw the Jeep into 4WD a few times, I don’t think we actually needed it more than once or twice. In this area, I always recommend using 4WD when driving in deep sand (especially along the Hassayampa River, which is notorious for quicksand).

And I know I don’t have to tell you to bring water, emergency gear, etc., right? Our route travelled to some pretty remote areas of the desert. If we had a breakdown, it would have been a long walk to help.

Yesterday, I decided that I wanted to start downsizing and simplifying my life. I want to spend more of the year traveling, experiencing more of what this whole country has to offer — rather than what’s around me in Wickenburg or Phoenix. I’m hoping that my travels will help me find the place I want to retire to. I know that neither Wickenburg nor Phoenix is that place.

I’ve been in my Wickenburg home for 12 years and have accumulated at least 12 years worth of “stuff.” Since I’m addicted to books, a lot of that stuff is books. I have a library of about 500 books spread out over three rooms and lots of shelves. I’ve read many — but sadly, not all — of these books. They cover many of the topics that interest me now — and have interested me over the past 20 or more years. Not much of it is fiction — I tend to use libraries for that these days, since I usually don’t read a novel more than once.

A lot of my library consists of reference books: books I consult — or think I need to consult — for my work or hobbies. For example, I have at least 75 books about writing and at least 40 about flying helicopters. I have books about horses and parrots and aquarium fish — the pets I’ve owned over the years. (We don’t need a book about dogs; we’ve learned through experience.) I have books about Web design and software programs and operating systems. I have books about business and philosophy. I have travel books about places all over the U.S., South America, Europe, and even Australia.

And, of course, I have the coffee table books I’ve gotten as gifts, most of which are beautiful but poor matches for my interests.

Thinning out my library seemed a good place to start thinning out my stuff. So I did what I usually do when I want to sell a book — I listed a bunch of them on Amazon.com.

Listing a book for sale on Amazon.com is very easy — as long as you have the ISBN. Just enter the ISBN in a form field and Amazon displays the book. You indicate the book’s condition, set a price, and choose shipping options. Amazon then lists it as another “Buying Choice” in the right column of the page where the book is listed and described.

A long time ago, I bought a used book on Amazon.com through a “marketplace” seller. The book was described as used in “Used – Very Good” condition. But when the book arrived, I found it full of underlining. I wigged out and contacted the seller. They refunded the payment; I returned the book. The whole experience left a sour taste in my mouth that took several years to wear off.

Since then, however, I’ve bought other books through marketplace sellers. The first after that bad experience was Drood, a novel. The book is enormous — 784 pages — and Amazon was selling it for well over $20 at the time. But someone else was selling it for $8 in “Used – Like New” condition. I took a gamble. The book, when it arrived, was indeed like new. I’ve since bought a few other books this way.

The drawback to buying from Amazon.com Marketplace sellers is that the books never qualify for “Free Super Saver Shipping.” You have to pay shipping for each book you buy. But if you’re saving $10 on a book, you’re still ahead if you spend another $3.99 for shipping.

Anyway, I currently have 57 books listed on Amazon.com’s Marketplace for sale. All of the books are in new or excellent condition — I treat my books very kindly. (The idea of writing in a book appalls me, although I know it’s common.) I’ve priced them to sell, meaning they’re usually the lowest price for a new or used book. The main goal is to unload them without cost — not to make a fortune selling books.

I’ve only gone though about 10% of my library, so many more will be listed over the coming weeks. I expect to list at least 400 books between now and March month-end.

Help me reduce my stuff — check out the list of books and if you want one, buy it from Flying M Productions.

If you saw my office, you’d never believe that I truly like to be organized. I hate clutter, I hate piles of junk lying around, I hate not being able to find things.

So it was with great pleasure that I cleaned out my junk drawer the other day and reorganized it with some dividers. The photo here shows the results.

I don’t have time to blog about this in detail right now. And let’s face it — who really wants to read about it? The picture shows all. We made the dividers with a divider kit I bought at The Container Store in Scottsdale the other day.

Now if only I could reorganize my office!

Arizona is known primarily for one thing: its brutally hot summers. To be fair, it’s only 110°F + for a few months and only in the lower elevations of the state. The rest of the state has much milder weather — at least in the summer. In the winter, places like Flagstaff and the Grand Canyon can get the same kinds of winter storms that caused me to flee the New York metro area years ago.

Our house in Wickenburg is at a slightly higher elevation than Phoenix: 2200 feet vs. 1000 feet in the Valley. Because of this, we get just about the same weather as Phoenix, although we tend to run 5°F cooler year-round. (This is one of the reasons I escape to northern Arizona or Washington State every summer.)

The autumn, winter, and spring weather, in general, is a monotony of perfectly clear sunny days. In the height of winter, nighttime temperatures might dip to below freezing, but it general climbs back up to the 60s or even 70s once the sun rises high into the cloudless sky. Rain is a welcome treat. Storms are a rarity.

We had a storm yesterday, however. A low came in from the Pacific coast, dragging along tons of moisture as it moved in from the southwest. We had low clouds all day long — it was one of the 10 or so days each year when it’s impossible to fly VFR. The rain came and went — a good, soaking rain that the desert really needs. The radar showed various shades of green throughout our area, with pink and blue (icy mix and snow) in higher elevations just 10 miles north.

It got dark and the rain continued into the night. Then the wind started. The weather forecast warned of a Wind Advisory with winds gusting as high as 58 mph throughout the area. It even suggested that vehicles stay off of I-10, which runs from the Los Angeles area through Phoenix and then south to Tucson before turning east again toward New Mexico.

I was alone at home last night with Jack the Dog and Alex the Bird. Jack wanted no part of the outdoors yesterday and it was tough just getting him out there long enough to do his business. We closed up the house around 7 PM, shutting off the lights downstairs so Alex could sleep. I watched a movie on our DVR while the wind started to whip up around the house. By the time I climbed into bed to read, the storm was in full swing.

It was the sound of the wind that prompted me to write this. I want to remember, in the future, how it sounded, so I figured I’d write it down in my journal — after all, that’s what this blog really is.

The wind had an otherworldly sound. It was the low frequency moan of a male voice, almost ghostly, rising and falling in pitch as as the wind’s intensity rose and fell. Rain pelted the flat roof and big windows. All this noise was accompanied by the rattling of the french doors that lead from our bedroom to upstairs patio and the pulsating of the window panes. More than once, I got up to check the doors to make sure they wouldn’t suddenly blow open.

Sometimes I heard a deep rumbling sound off in the distance. I’ve read time and time again that tornadoes sound like freight trains. I wondered whether there was any danger of that. Nothing in the forecast; I told myself not to worry.

Occasionally, the house shook on its foundation. It made me wonder what the wind speed really was. I dialed up the AWOS for Wickenburg Municipal Airport (E25) and listened to the automatically generated recording. Winds from 220 at 26 gusting to 39. I thought about how hurricane force winds would sound and feel against the house. I resolved yet again not to move into an area likely to get hurricanes or tornadoes.

I grew tired of reading and turned out the light. But I lay awake for a long time, listening to the sounds around me, comforted by the steady drone of the heat pump keeping the upstairs warm until its set-back time at 11 PM. Just as I was thinking about how unusual it was that we hadn’t lost power, the power failed. The heat-pump went quiet and the ambient light from my neighbor’s yard went dark. Now the only thing to hear and feel was the wind and the vibrations on the house.

I fell asleep a while later and slept remarkably well until 4 or 5 am. I woke suddenly and looked out the bedroom door toward the big window facing southeast. A bright splash of moonlight illuminated the shelves and floor there. The storm had cleared out. The waning moon, approaching its last quarter, was shining like a beacon over the desert.

Outside, the wind still howled. I fell back to sleep.

This year, I received a bumper crop of pre-printed return address labels. I got some with autumn colors and decorations (leaves and pumpkins), some with Thanksgiving themes (turkeys and cornucopias), and plenty with Christmas themes (Christmas trees, snowmen, candy canes, and wreaths). I kept them all. After all, I still do send out the occasional piece of mail, and it’s nice to have a colorful return address label to put on it.

I also got a bunch of religious-themed ones (crosses, Mary, baby Jesus). I threw those away. I’m not a religious person and certainly don’t want anyone to think I am.

Of course, all of these return address labels came with a pre-addressed return envelope and donation form. I threw those away, too.

Religious-themed or not, every single return address label I received as a “gift” was from a religious charity. If I’m not a religious person, why would I donate money to a religious charity? There are so many other non-religious charities that are just as noble — if not more so — than ones waving a religious banner.

I have Covenant House to thank for all of these labels. Last year, at the request of an author who had given me an autographed copy of his book, I made a $20 donation to his pet charity. It wasn’t until after I made the donation that I realized what the charity was all about. Yes, they do help battered women and children, etc. But they do so in their special Christian way. That way obviously includes using a direct mailing campaign to nag the hell out of anyone who has ever donated a dime so they keep sending money. I get at least one mailer a month from them, despite multiple requests to get off their list. That way also includes selling my name and address to all the other religious charities they know so they can pester me as well.

Of course, they do send those useful labels, so it isn’t all bad.

I believe that many people donate when they receive these “gifts” because they feel guilty if they don’t. Like God is going to strike them dead or sick or something. Or they’ll just get bad karma.

But the way I see it, a “gift” is a gift. It doesn’t require anything in return. I didn’t ask them to send me these labels. I don’t really need them. Why should I pay for them?

Think of it this way: If someone were to park a new car on your driveway and then ring your doorbell, hand you the keys and a clean title, and ask you for $25,000, would you pay him? Other than the perceived value, how are the labels any different?

And wouldn’t it be wasteful to throw all those pretty labels away?

We keep our stamps and batteries in a drawer in a built-in desk in our kitchen. Sadly, that’s not the only thing kept in that drawer. Over the years, our cleaning person used it as a catch-all for little things she could fit in there. And we apparently added our own things.

Today, sick of dealing with a drawer I could often not close, I emptied it as a prelude to cleaning it out. Here’s what it looked like neatly arranged on my kitchen’s center island:

Here’s what I found:

• A set of 6 precision screwdrivers with 3 of them missing.
• A screwdriver that does not belong to the above set.
• 3 small padlocks: 1 with keys, 1 with combination known, 1 with combination unknown.
• A “Jet Fuel Only” sticker, which is kind of odd because none of our vehicles takes JetA.
• A small plastic ruler.
• 3 promotional pens, all working. Why they aren’t in the pencil cup on the desk is a mystery.
• 4 black wooden pencils with erasers, only one of which is sharpened.
• A pencil sharpener.
• Numerous sheets of return address labels with various holiday themes, all received in the mail by charities that thought I’d pay for them when I never asked for them. (Wrong.)
• 2 broken sterling silver bracelets, badly tarnished.
• An empty Tylenol purse size bottle.
• Part of a AA battery charger, but not the part that actually plugs into the wall.
• An exposed roll of 35mm film.
• A small red square plastic filter.
• A single-hole punch.
• A wooden clothespin
• A small black plastic protractor (think elementary school).
• An iPod belt clip.
• An embroidered Ducati patch.
• 2 round adhesive-back pieces of Velcro, both soft side.
• 2 pennies
• 2 rolls of quarters
• 1 roll of dimes
• A Garden State Parkway toll token
• A bottle of Plexus 2 plastic polish
• A bottle of stamp pad ink
• A First Class Mail self-inking stamp
• A telephone jack splitter
• A tiny of green tea flavored “mints”
• 2 black binder clips: 1 small, 1 large
• Several dozen paper clips, 5 of which are preconfigured as Macintosh floppy disk removal tools. (Long-time Mac users know exactly what I mean.)
• A handful of rubber bands, half of which are dried, cracked, and unusable
• The “start” pin for a light timer.
• A tube of dark red lipstick.
• A tube of Blistex.
• 2 rings for hanging bird toys in a cage.
• 8 key rings, empty
• A key ring flashlight with AAA battery still working
• 3 partial rows of staples
• A contact lens case
• A small round sponge
• An envelope slitter
• Multiple screws, including two screw-in hooks
• A rubber foot for some kind of stand
• A wooden peg for our futon
• A wooden peg that looks like it came from a game
• A lapel mic clip
• 3 black beads, 2 of which are almost identical
• 3 promotional pins: 2 Feedburner logos and 1 QuickBooks heart Mac
• 2 WINGS program pins
• A tiny safety pin
• 5 various sized wire ties
• A sprayer nozzle
• Magnet-backed promotional 2002 calendar from an out-of-business local mechanic
• A rock with bits of green color
• A SanDisk neoprene zippered media card holder
• A bookmark with Mount Rushmore pictured on it
• The manual for a Sony cassette recorder
• A pocket calculator, not solar-powered, with installed battery still functioning
• A piece of masking tape marked “Do Not Open” with the adhesive dried up. I have no idea what this was affixed to, but recognize my handwriting. (I hope I didn’t open it.)
• A Bed Bath & Beyond Gift Card, likely never used
• A package of drapery pins
• My “captain” pilot stripes from the summer of 2004, when I flew at the Grand Canyon
• A Newton rechargeable Battery Pack
• 7 D cell batteries, 2 of which are in an unopened package
• 2 loose C cell batteries
• 43 loose AA cell batteries: 6 lithium, 17 alkaline, and 20 rechargeable (4 nickel-cadmium, 15 nickel-metal hydride, and 1 unknown)
• 8 AAA cell batteries in an unopened package
• 2 9-volt batteries, both rechargeable nickel-metal hydride
• Numerous postage stamps in the following denominations: 1¢, 2¢, 3¢, 4¢, 20¢, 27¢, 41¢, 42¢, 72¢, $1, $3, $3.85, $4.80, $4.95, “forever” (current First Class rate)

No, I did not find a partridge in a pear tree, despite the season.

The batteries pose a problem. The rechargeables are likely all dead for good, but there’s no place to recycle them in Wickenburg. The other loose batteries are probably at least half spent, which is why we don’t use them. The lithiums likely came out of my SPOT Messenger, which requires lithium batteries. When they’re too used to rely on them in SPOT — which I need to have fresh batteries — they work great in my handheld GPS and most other devices. The fact that we have so many loose batteries amazes me. It’s probably because they kept sliding into the back of the drawer and we kept buying more.

Anyway, the drawer is now empty. My next tasks is to clean it out — with soap and water — and then put back in the things that are supposed to be in there: batteries, stamps, and a few things likely to be in a regular desk drawer.

The rest of this crap? Who knows where it will end up?

And I wonder what’s on that roll of film…

Yesterday, I picked up a charter flight from Scottsdale to Grand Canyon and back. The client’s agent booked the flight at 11 AM and I was supposed to pick up the client in Scottsdale at 12:30 PM. This is far less advance notice than I want, but pre-Christmas business is always slow — other than gift certificates, of course — and I wasn’t about to turn it down. Instead, I hustled my butt off and, at 12:30 PM, was walking into Scottsdale Airport terminal while a Landmark Aviation fueler topped off my helicopter’s tanks.

My passengers were not around. I had a voicemail and it was from them. They were at the FBO at the other side of the airport. Scottsdale has a terminal building and two FBOs. For some reason, no matter how much I stress that I meet passengers at the terminal, they always wind up at one of the two FBOs. In the background of their second voicemail, I heard the FBO staff member explain how to get to the terminal.

I figured I had about 3 minutes to hit the ladies room. I was just finishing my business there when my phone rang. Expecting my passengers, I answered it.

“Flying M, Maria speaking.”

“Is this Maria?”

I don’t understand this. I answer the phone the same way all the time and 50% of the calls start out with “Is this Maria?” Does anyone listen when they make a phone call?

I replied (as I always do), “Yes, this is Maria.”

“My name is Jean. Steve Smith told me to call you.”

So far, this meant nothing to me. I didn’t know a Steve Smith. I didn’t reply, as I let my brain work on this information.

My caller hurried on. “Steve Smith worked with your husband Mike about two years ago.”

At first, nothing. Then a glimmer. “Steve? The guy who makes the ribs? From Texas or someplace?”

“Oklahoma,” she replied, sounding relieved.

Steve deserves his own entry in my Stranger than Fiction files. The poor guy moved from Oklahoma to Phoenix to take a job with my husband Mike’s company. The first night he’s in town, staying at a hotel, thieves steal his truck with all of his belongings in it. Mike, who didn’t know him before that, is one of a few people to help him out as he recovers from that and settles into his new apartment. He came to our house one weekend and made us the best smoked ribs I’ve ever had from our smoker. But he’d left his wife (and kids?) back in Oklahoma and he missed them. One Monday morning, he simply didn’t show up for work. When they checked where he had been living, it had been cleaned out. He basically disappeared and we never heard from him again.

Until yesterday.

Jean was talking again. “I just moved into the Phoenix area. Steve said I should give you a call. I’m looking for a job and I was wondering if you knew of anything.”

WTF?

At this point, I was washing my hands, speaking to her from the inside of the ladies room at Scottsdale Airport’s main terminal through my Bluetooth earpiece. I was expecting my passengers to appear any minute. I had to brief them and hustle them out to the helicopter so they could catch a tour at the Grand Canyon in less than 90 minutes.

And this stranger, referred by a missing-in-action friend, was asking me if I could help her find a job?

“I don’t know of any jobs,” I said. “And I think it’s pretty strange that Steve gave you my number, considering he disappeared off the face of the earth two years ago and we never heard from him again.”

This seemed to surprise her. “Oh, well he always said such nice things about you.”

Like that mattered to me?

She was talking again, but I cut her off. “Listen, I’m waiting for some clients and I really can’t talk now. I can’t help you. Good luck with your job search. Goodbye.”

I heard her say goodbye as I pressed the disconnect button.

Thinking back on this, I’m amazed that it happened at all. This woman relocates into the 5th or 6th largest city in the country. A city with newspapers and Craig’s list and employment companies. But rather than tap into the wealth of all the job listings available to her, she cold calls a “friend” of a friend looking for help finding a job? Even if I was hiring, I wouldn’t hire her (unless I was hiring someone to make cold calls; she seems to have some skill at that). She’s obviously not interested in finding her own job and would prefer to have someone else find a job for her.

A stranger.

Maybe she thought I had a job to offer. Maybe that’s why she didn’t offer any details on the kind of job she was looking for. Hell, she didn’t even say what kind of work she did! Was she a secretary? A lawyer? A hair stylist? Who the hell knows? Maybe Steve told her I had a successful helicopter charter business and needed help. By being vague about the kind of job she was looking for, she thought she could wrangle an offer or interview out of me.

Not likely, for so many reasons.

I’m also left wondering if this was some kind of scam. (New Yorkers really can’t help wondering this when something strange happens. It’s in our blood.) Maybe she didn’t even know Steve. Maybe she found (or stole) his address book. Maybe she thought she would wriggle into some kind of friendly relationship with me. Maybe she thought I could help her find a place to live — or that she could move in with me. Or that she could get financial support from me with some kind of sob story.

If any of that is true, she really called the wrong person.

I’ve been wanting to get an H1N1 Flu Vaccine for a while now. I believe that by getting the vaccine, I’ll not only protect myself from getting the Swine Flu, but I’ll prevent myself from becoming a carrier that can infect other people. In other words: I’ll do my part to help protect my fellow citizens and possibly prevent deaths.

When I heard the vaccine was available in town, I started making calls to see where I could get a shot. The Safeway Supermarket pharmacy ran out of doses yesterday. They suggested that I call my doctor. I did. And that’s when I got a shock.

A receptionist answered the phone. When I asked about the H1N1 Vaccine, she told me the doctor wasn’t giving shots. When I asked why, she replied:

The doctor heard that there were serious neurological side effects to the vaccine. She doesn’t think it’s safe.

What?

I asked the girl for details and she had none. I asked her to have the doctor call me. I hung up and went to Twitter. My query there brought links to two reliable sources of information about the vaccine:

• @aprilmains replied first with a link to “Canada, U.S. spark ethical debate with different approaches” on The Globe and Mail Web site. (April is Canadian and just got her shots today.)
• @gglockner quickly followed up with “General Questions and Answers on 2009 H1N1 Infuenza Vaccine Safety” on the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) Web site.

I read the information on both pages. Neither discussed any likely serious side effects. The CDC piece did mention the usual flu vaccine side effects but said the H1N1 vaccine was no more likely than any other flu vaccine to result in those side effects. It also mentioned Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS), which was apparently an issue back in 1976. The article said that studies had been done and that the risk of GBS was 1 additional person out of 1 million.

Let me repeat that: 1 person in 1 million.

Is this the kind of risk that worried my doctor?

The phone rang. It was the receptionist at the doctor’s office. She told me that the doctor had read about the risks online, but she couldn’t remember where. (Fox News? I wondered.) She’d also heard about it from patients. (Now patients are advising doctors?) And she’d also heard it from a few doctors.

In other words, it was hearsay from vague, unidentified, and mostly unqualified sources.

I told her what I’d learned from the CDC. She wasn’t interested. She wanted to argue with me. Evidently, the doctor’s sources were more valid than the Centers for Disease Control of one of the most advanced nations on the face of the earth. She wouldn’t listen to reason, she wouldn’t give me a chance to speak.

So I hung up on her. Why should I waste my time listening to a raving idiot?

I’ll be looking for a new doctor. Again.

And I’ll keep looking for my vaccination.

You want more information from the CDC? Start here.

You want some satire on the whole vaccine idiocy? Check out this on the Onion.